Thursday, August 30, 2012

Easy Baby Gifts

Stop drinking the baby making water! I can’t keep up with the baby gift giving!

Love, Michelle

Seriously. Everyone is my life is having babies. Babies. Babies Babies. These babies make me feel old. They make my mom think I should have babies. None of this is good. STOP WITH THE BABIES!!

Since my friends are obviously not listening, I am here today to share with you some fairly simple baby gift ideas.

First up, the easy sew blanket.

I've shared the finished product a couple of times (here and here) but I actually remembered to take photos of the process this time. Bad photos but they are photos none-the-less. Baby steps.
Friends/family love these blankets for tummy time. Babies love them for throwing up on. Win. Win.
You will need:

1 1/4 yard fabric for the front

1 1/4 yard fabric for the back

Batting (I usually buy the craft size. It will say something about crib size on the packaging. Have a coupon handy because the batting runs ~9.99.)

Heat N Bond (not pictured)

I recommend prewashing the fabric. Sometimes I forget/get impatient and don’t. I have seen that the prewashed blankets hold up a bit better.

If you want to personalize your blanket, cut out the letter/shape that you would like onto some fabric and Heat N Bond.

Follow the directions on the Heat N Bond and attach your letter to the front fabric.

Sew around the edges. I like zig zag stitches. Zig zags cover imperfections well. Use what you like. A coordinating thread would be good. Or white, if you are a fancy gift giver…like myself.

Trim excess fabric. Start about half way on one of the short sides sew around the edges leaving about 6 inches unsewn. Leaving this 6 inch opening will allow you to turn the blanket right side out. I don’t have an exact seam allowance for you on the sewing. Probably 1/4 inch. You really can’t screw this blanket up. Trust me.

Reach your hand in the 6 inch opening and pull the blanket right sides out. Doing this project in cupcake pajama pants will give you guaranteed results.

Make sure to poke your corners out well. Use a pen or scissors if needed.

You will then be left with the 6 inch opening.

You can hand stitch just the opening shut or you can stitch around the entire edges of the blanket. Make sure that you have the opening pinned well. My decision on this depends on my mood. I like the look of both finishes. For this particular blanket, I decided to stitch around the edges. If you decide to only stitch the opening, I suggest sewing a few stitches every few inches on the blanket to keep it from bunching (more info on that step here).

You’re made it! A giant burp cloth ready to give to those new little bundles of joy!

I added a little print along that I whipped up in PSE and shipped it off to one of my childhood friends to share with her teeny tiny baby boy. He was born very early but is doing wonderfully. They were able to leave the hospital with him this past week-end!

As if this post isn’t long enough already, here’s another quick idea for when you forget that the work shower for your head boss is the next day. (I’m amazingly on top of things.) You go to Target and you find a utensil candy on sale for $6. You fill it full of random baby crap…like Tylenol, saline drops, Butt Paste, travel baby soap, booger sucker, books, onesies, and some burp cloths…and hand it to your boss like you totally planned this gift ahead of time.

What’s your go-to baby gift? Do you prefer to give handmade, purchases, or a good mixture? Mom readers, what was the best baby gift that you received? Non-moms…don’t drink the water!!!!!!

Stop drinking the baby making water! I can’t keep up with the baby gift giving!

Love, Michelle

Seriously. Everyone is my life is having babies. Babies. Babies Babies. These babies make me feel old. They make my mom think I should have babies. None of this is good. STOP WITH THE BABIES!!

Since my friends are obviously not listening, I am here today to share with you some fairly simple baby gift ideas.

First up, the easy sew blanket.

I've shared the finished product a couple of times (here and here) but I actually remembered to take photos of the process this time. Bad photos but they are photos none-the-less. Baby steps.
Friends/family love these blankets for tummy time. Babies love them for throwing up on. Win. Win.
You will need:

1 1/4 yard fabric for the front

1 1/4 yard fabric for the back

Batting (I usually buy the craft size. It will say something about crib size on the packaging. Have a coupon handy because the batting runs ~9.99.)

Heat N Bond (not pictured)

I recommend prewashing the fabric. Sometimes I forget/get impatient and don’t. I have seen that the prewashed blankets hold up a bit better.

If you want to personalize your blanket, cut out the letter/shape that you would like onto some fabric and Heat N Bond.

Follow the directions on the Heat N Bond and attach your letter to the front fabric.

Sew around the edges. I like zig zag stitches. Zig zags cover imperfections well. Use what you like. A coordinating thread would be good. Or white, if you are a fancy gift giver…like myself.

Trim excess fabric. Start about half way on one of the short sides sew around the edges leaving about 6 inches unsewn. Leaving this 6 inch opening will allow you to turn the blanket right side out. I don’t have an exact seam allowance for you on the sewing. Probably 1/4 inch. You really can’t screw this blanket up. Trust me.

Reach your hand in the 6 inch opening and pull the blanket right sides out. Doing this project in cupcake pajama pants will give you guaranteed results.

Make sure to poke your corners out well. Use a pen or scissors if needed.

You will then be left with the 6 inch opening.

You can hand stitch just the opening shut or you can stitch around the entire edges of the blanket. Make sure that you have the opening pinned well. My decision on this depends on my mood. I like the look of both finishes. For this particular blanket, I decided to stitch around the edges. If you decide to only stitch the opening, I suggest sewing a few stitches every few inches on the blanket to keep it from bunching (more info on that step here).

You’re made it! A giant burp cloth ready to give to those new little bundles of joy!

I added a little print along that I whipped up in PSE and shipped it off to one of my childhood friends to share with her teeny tiny baby boy. He was born very early but is doing wonderfully. They were able to leave the hospital with him this past week-end!

As if this post isn’t long enough already, here’s another quick idea for when you forget that the work shower for your head boss is the next day. (I’m amazingly on top of things.) You go to Target and you find a utensil candy on sale for $6. You fill it full of random baby crap…like Tylenol, saline drops, Butt Paste, travel baby soap, booger sucker, books, onesies, and some burp cloths…and hand it to your boss like you totally planned this gift ahead of time.

What’s your go-to baby gift? Do you prefer to give handmade, purchases, or a good mixture? Mom readers, what was the best baby gift that you received? Non-moms…don’t drink the water!!!!!!

In my ideal world I'd always have enough to go handmade! I always have great plans but have only followed through once (when I was unemployed for a month while my future sister in law was pregnant so I could make this http://annabelvita.com/2012/02/01/northcote-cabbages-and-roses-baby-quil/) - but normally I just buy a sophie la giraffe. These baby blankets might be a great new gift because they're less work than a whole quilt but still awesome!

I agree - there is definitely something in the water. One of Joe's cousins will have a baby and then another cousin announces they're pregnant. It's crazy! Everyone is trying to get us to have babies and I'm like "woah, let's all calm down here".

Anyway, my go-to gift is to make a quilt. It's nice because I spend less than if I pitched in with other people (for some reason, the general consensus is that $100 is ideal for a baby gift... I know, I live in crazy-land) and it makes me happy to give something hand-made.

The best gift to me was diapers. Not diaper cakes, just diapers. Packages and packages. I was thrilled. Although, if we do this kid thing again, we'll be using cloth diapers. It's pretty horrifying how much diaper waste one kid can clog up a landfill with.

Love Love Love the ideas! I wish I could sew. In my dreams I'm totally capable of. Real life? not so much.So, you're a pharmacist, right? Can you get me some of the good stuff? oh..no? oh... I'm sorry now I sound like the crazy lady that wants a squishy baby so very bad... right? Well, yeah...I'm that one. ;)

I am guilty of drinking the water. 8.5 months later, here I am. The laziest blogger on earth.

My shower was a couple weeks ago. I loved anything handmade. My favorite gift (besides the camcorder & spa day gift card) was a basket full of onesies with a circle on the belly telling the babys's age. I saw it on pinterest & clearly my husbands cousin did too. I love that I have another excuse to photograph the baby and can see the changes over the course of time.

CUUUUTE blanket!! I heard it was nice to give diapers, which I hated, until I had a kid. Then I was SO HAPPY to get diapers - one less thing for me to spend money on. (I'd rather spend diaper money on cute baby clothes!)

Cute blanket. You can make one for my future off-spring, assuming I'm still fertile in 10 years. And I love the gift you slapped together. Totally looks planned out. Did you get the utensil caddy when it was on clearance? I almost bought it the other day-- then I remembered that we don't have a patio set.